Border Patrol accused of retaliating against aid group in Arizona

Published 3:47 pm, Sunday, January 28, 2018

This Jan. 10, 2011, image from video provided by No More Deaths shows Border Patrol agents kicking over water bottles left for those crossing into the U.S. illegally in the Arizona desert.

This Jan. 10, 2011, image from video provided by No More Deaths shows Border Patrol agents kicking over water bottles left for those crossing into the U.S. illegally in the Arizona desert.

Photo: Uncredited, Associated Press

Border Patrol accused of retaliating against aid group in Arizona

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It is the job of U.S. Border Patrol agents to capture people crossing into the country illegally. In Arizona this month, they chose another target: one of the many volunteers who provide food, water and other supplies aimed at helping migrants survive in the desert.

Scott Warren, 35, a faculty associate at Arizona State University and longtime volunteer with aid group No More Deaths, was arrested Jan. 17 near the town of Ajo and charged in federal court with felony alien smuggling.

Immigrant advocates say the charge is retaliation against the aid group based in Tucson, which released a report and videos alleging Border Patrol agents destroyed supplies left for migrants.

“This is really an escalation in the criminalization of humanitarian aid work,” said Lee Sandusky, a volunteer with the group, which last week publicized the arrest. “We’ve long had a tenuous relationship with Border Patrol and other agencies in the borderlands, and there seems to be an uptick in the targeting of humanitarian aid work in the past year.”

The arrest comes a month after federal officials filed a range of misdemeanor charges against nine volunteers from the same group for leaving plastic jugs of water in the desert.

Several groups routinely leave aid for migrants along the southern border from California to Texas. Volunteers say their goal is to save migrant lives, not break the law.

The report said that more than 3,586 gallon jugs of water left for migrants had been destroyed in an 800-square-mile area in southern Arizona between 2012 and 2015.

Warren was arrested hours after the report was released.

Agents were surveilling a building known as “the Barn,” saw what they believed to be two immigrants entering, and intervened, according to the federal criminal complaint. The men identified themselves as Mexican nationals and told the agents they knew there would be food and water inside because they researched their route online, looking for “the best ways and methods to cross the border illegally,” the complaint said.

“Warren met them outside and gave them food and water for approximately three days,” it said. One of the migrants, Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday, told the agents that Warren “took care of them in ‘the Barn’ by giving them food, water, beds and clean clothes.”

Warren is free while he awaits trial. William Walker, an attorney for No More Deaths, said Warren did nothing illegal.

“Everyone knows this building,” he said. “Border Patrol has watched it for years. They know it’s used as a medical facility, for people to get respite, get an IV and food. Just providing food and water and medical care is not a crime.”